Companies often mail identical packages, such as marketing collateral, CDs, or company information to a group of people (prospects, customers or employees). The company typically ships all these packages on the same day. In some cases, the company wants all the recipients to receive the shipments by a certain date. The recipients normally live different distances from the shipping point. To achieve the targeted delivery date, the company typically ships by the shipping method that has the least risk of missing the delivery date for the farthest recipient.
Sometimes, a handful of recipients may be classified as “outliers,” i.e., they live a lot farther away than most other recipients. In these cases, the company loses money because it chooses an expensive shipping method so the farthest recipient gets the package on time. It would be cheaper if the company were to choose a slightly longer shipment method (for example, three-day instead of two-day delivery). Then the outliers would receive the shipment one day late, but the remaining recipients would receive the shipment on time.
What is clearly needed is a system and method for optimizing shipping costs that can help arbitrate between a perfect solution at an unreasonable cost and a reasonable solution at a very reasonable cost.